I read half the book in one long shot Sunday afternoon.I think it is wonderful ,anybody can understand it who can read though I have more questions than answers and some funny things I found in the Borges translation.

Thanks for thoughtfully answering my quesition in Latin Literature about Borges. I posted a reply for you.

In terms of Wild Palms, how about approaching it from a slightly different approach? Why not you, Hoffman, I and anyone else interested in it take this week off to read it, take notes and write down the killer questions like you've done?

Am very interested in your thoughts about the Borges translation: a key text to Gabreil Garcia Marquez...

I can't speak for Hoffman, but personally I'm exhausted after our Absalom, Absalom discussion and absorbing the Borges magic realist material. My brain -- both left and right brain -- can only absorb so much. Like a sponge. I'm still thinking about Absalom, Absalom...

For example, I posted a "right brain" approach to that novel over in poetry..."Interview with Quentin Compson."

The narrators in Faulkner don't talk like anyone. They don't talk like any characters I ever heard of. They don't talk like any story I ever read. They don't talk like philosphers or bible writers or gods or demons or poets.

They don't talk like people think, at least not like I think and not like anyone I know who's ever tried to tell me how they think.

Rosa Coldfield doesn't sound like any Southerner I ever knew (though Wash sounds like a regular guy so maybe I should just say that some of Faulkner's folks don't talk like anyone I ever knew or heard of and don't think like any of 'em either).

So, here's the question. Who do they talk like?

Ever notice how the giants in history are always the ones who can stand outside the world and kind of look down into it? Like Einstein, especially with the special theory. He put himself outside of the world, time, the forces we know about and looked down in and came up with an observation.

Is it presumptious to suggest that people can do that with literature too?

First of all I have to say waaay back up the thread I made a really really dumb statement about Faulkner not being that Southern. OK, throw the tomatoes now!I had not read Faulkner, and had a totally closed mind as to what I'd "heard" about him. Gak.

Because of this thread, I purchased Absalom, Absalom!....read it, loved it, am a total convert. Good grief, the man could not be more Southern!

I've been considering replying to this thread awhile now, but y'all were off on tangents I couldn't follow, but Reader, I just have to counter something you've said in the quoted post.I know these people, these are the people I grew up with and know like the back of my hand. they are my family.Rosa could be my closest female relative. 'Course Sutpen himself would not have survived in my family too long, but that is a whole 'nuther story. heh.BTW, I was born, raised, and have lived my life up to now in south Lousiana. One side of my family has been here since the early 1800's and the other side earlier.

"How to approach language, words: not with seriousness so much, as an essayist does, but with a kind of alert respect, as you approach dynamite; even with joy, as you approach women: perhaps with the same secretly unscrupulous intentions."

How did Faulkner handle that one? If you think Rosa Coldfield or Quentin Compson in Absalom, Absalom is hard to follow, then take a dip into the chapter narrated by the child-idiot Benjy...

To say it’s just stream-of-consciousness is an easy way out. It’s Southern stream of consciousness—but with a twist and a snap:

“Faulkner portrays in the idiot Benjy a man who experiences only the "sound and the fury" and is unaware of abstractions and "false refinements" such as those his brother Quentin attempts to impose upon life. For example, although Benjy is profoundly affected by the physical change that he sense in his sister Candace, unlike Quentin he is entirely unconcerned about the abstract idea of her loss of virginity.”

How did Faulkner author this Voice? This child-idiot Benjy? How does a child-idiot think? Or speak? Or feel?

The following article looks at how Faulkner may have created Benjy—perhaps even becoming Benjy. If you know what I mean…

I don’t personally think authoring a character is a rational discursive process.

Who knows how it works? Even Faulkner in his interviews says the whole process is a mystery…

“That William Faulkner was fascinated with the idiot is evident from the appearance of this figure in at least four of his novels.1 What is not so evident, however, is the source of his fascination. I propose to show that the idiot in The Sound and the Fury has probably been modeled on the protagonist of Wordsworth's ballad “The Idiot Boy” (1798). I came to reflect upon this indebtedness after noticing the coincidence of Benjy Compson's birth date (April 7th) with Wordsworth's. Upon comparing the section of the novel narrated by Benjy with "The Idiot Boy," I found similarities in characterization and theme that seem too close to be the result of coincidence.”

—Michael A. Fredrickson, A Note on "The Idiot Boy" as a Probable, Source for The Sound and the Fury

Josh,A bit more recent Satirist(He died at the front in WW1) is Saki.His "The Unrest Cure and other beastly tales" is great though mine is from the UK but I assume it's in print here.Very short pieces.

Logged

"If it keeps going like this,the Zamboni driver is going to be the first star"

What may seem satirical in one historical context—may not seem that way to others, e.g. Swift’s satire and the British/Irish or William Burroughs’ satire and WASP postwar America…

A contemporary satirist I like is David Lynch—but then I’m sure many of your young adolescents have seen Eraserhead (1977) already. Neo-noir dystopian it is—but it’s also sick and funny. Just the stuff adolescents like. At least the adolescent in me...

Since this adolescent generation is you-tubed I did a you-tube search on “Eraserhead” and came up with 967 responses. Some are movie-clips—but many are “presentations” or “reenactments” of various scenes and characters.

This kind of response based on such a “sick” movie means to me that Eraserhead with all of its neo-noir post-apocalyptic satire strikes a note deep inside their psyches. Similar to the ‘70s Rocky Horror Picture Show rites and rituals at the Neptune in the U-District here in Seattle every Friday Night. Talk about audience participation…

The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) is also a neo-noir film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Full of quiet day-to-day irony that engulfs a poor helpless slob who muddles thru his life—with chance at first helping him (his skanky adulterous wife blamed for the murder of the guy she was seeing on the side). But then strange ironic chance gets him in the end—as if boomerranging back around to get him. Lots of irony here too. Not as post-apocalyptic as Eraserhead—but still the protagonists seem like us…

Watching Eraserhead and sampling some of the better you-tube movie-clips to me would get the discussion going about what satire is and how neo-noir satire is not only contemporary—but real…

Of course literary satire is different than cinematic satire…but then watching Eraserhead or The Man Who Wasn't there and sampling some you-tube clips might get them interested in reading/writing satire as well…

How did Faulkner handle that one? If you think Rosa Coldfield or Quentin Compson in Absalom, Absalom is hard to follow, then take a dip into the chapter narrated by the child-idiot Benjy...

To say it’s just stream-of-consciousness is an easy way out. It’s Southern stream of consciousness—but with a twist and a snap:

The Sound and The Fury is next on my Faulkner list. The only other Faulkner I'd attempted was As I Lay Dying, and I didn't like it one bit, now I suppose that is because I just didn't care for the people. When I have a better grounding in Faulkner, I'll have to go back to it, but really I am attracted more to the Snopes trilogy more than anything after TSATF.

I did find it a little difficult to follow at first, probably reread the first few pages 4 or 5 times, but all of a sudden it just fell into place beautifully. Once you get Rosa's rhythm of thought it is easy.